Dick Cheney: Looter
The Americans have, though, put hundreds of troops inside two Iraqi ministries that remain untouched — and untouchable — because tanks and armoured personnel carriers and Humvees have been placed inside and outside both institutions. And which ministries proved to be so important for the Americans? Why, the Ministry of Interior, of course — with its vast wealth of intelligence information on Iraq — and the Ministry of Oil. The archives and files of Iraq's most valuable asset — its oilfields and, even more important, its massive reserves — are safe and sound, sealed off from the mobs and looters, and safe to be shared, as Washington almost certainly intends, with American oil companies.It amazes me 1) how nakedly the U.S. does this sort of thing especially when we are told again and agin how the war is about "liberation" and definitely, definitely not about oil, and 2) that the U.S. media has yet to make a single mention of this in reams of copy it has produced about the looting. And for all the text they've devoted to people who've been devastated for a decade going out and trying to get anything they can that they might be able to sell for food or water, the real looters have gone about their business blissfully unnoticed.
originally posted by zagg
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Another, very damning piece by Fisk points out that, while scrambling to protect the oil ministry, US troops didn't bother to preserve Iraq's torture files:
President Bush promised that America was campaigning for human rights in Iraq, that the guilty, the war criminals, would be brought to trial. The 60 secret police headquarters in Baghdad are empty, even the three-square-mile compound headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. I have been to many of them. But there is no evidence even that a single British or US forensic officer has visited the sites to sift the wealth of documents lying there or talk to the ex-prisoners returning to their former places of torment.
Posted by: xowie | April 18, 2003 11:20 AM
In doing another google search with slightly different search parameters I see that a few U.S. sources have made a brief mention of the defense of the Ministry of Oil.
Posted by: zagg | April 18, 2003 4:06 PM
Your messages and revelations are so right-on.
Isn't it sad how they attract readers who already know...while republicans skip past them without learning a damned thing on their numb, blind, selfish quest for personal wealth.
None of my teachers could ever answer my questions; "why do we have to kill communists?" "whats the difference between republicans and democrats?"; they all look the same, eat the same, breathe the same...all just want to love and feed their children.
Its taken 60 years for me to grow up and find the answers for myself. I won't live another 60 to learn what we can do about any of it. I guess thats why Jesus and other great leaders have left us with instructions on how to prepare for our personal graduations into higher education...how to take hold of their extended hand of divine guidance with one hand without letting go of the the hands of the children behind us, who depend upon us to teach them how to survive in this mess. And if we pay attention, they teach us how to enjoy it.
Thats the most important thing...learn to enjoy life (when is the last time you felt joy without guilt? Its here, and available to all of us. We just have to give it more power through our acceptance and attention, than Satan's powerful legions' misinformation.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 14, 2003 4:18 AM